The Post -- A Movie Review

          Real -- Then              Hollywood -- Now   

                             

Real headline from June 18, 1971, "Documents Reveal U.S. Effort in '54 to Delay Viet Election"
First of a Series
By Chalmers M. Roberts
By THE WASHINGTON POST

Real headline from the Denver Post which picked up the story from The Washington Post,
"Fitness devices expose troops"
By Liz Sly
By THE WASHINGTON POST
January 28, 2018 at 6:04 pm

A striking similarity, don't you think?

There are differences. The first headline was on a hard copy of a newspaper. Perhaps the tactile nature of the bearer of bad news made it all the more shocking. Not to mention the fact that newspapers, printed using Linotype machines to produce lines of type then set into the printer, left ink smudges on your breakfast hands.

The second headline showed up on my laptop as I read my digital edition of The Denver Post this morning. (For the curious reader. No printer's ink smudges here.)

Steven Spielberg has done it again. Another excellent movie. The Post staring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks is about a newspaper that prints information the United States Government (You know, that government "of the people, by the people and for the people") would rather "the people" not know.

Actually, just as there was more to those days than the Vietnam war, there is much more to this movie. Women's rights, a mega-defensive President. (At least Nixon's expletives were deleted.)

What the movie got wrong. Not in the opening scenes where the soldiers pushed through threateningly quiet, dense jungle, unable to see their enemy. Or the soldiers amid the noise and chaos of injury and loss following a battle. And maybe the soldiers would have referred to the "long-hair," Daniel Ellsberg instead of "that old guy." What was wrong in the opening scenes was that the soldiers looked too old. The average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was 22 compared to WWII and Afghanistan when they were 26. Four years difference is not much, is it? They're all too young.

What The Post gets right is Robert McNamara's glasses and the part in his hair. And the times.

Meryl Streep's portrayal of Katherine Graham is stunning. She gives us a woman who grew up in luxury and privilege. She married. She raised children. She gave the best parties, attended by the best people, including Washington's great and powerful. A woman who lived like she was supposed to until her husband died. Worse yet. Her husband committed suicide and left her to run a newspaper.

As publisher, Graham was certainly not responsible for the business on a daily basis. She had a Board for that. All men. She had an Executive Editor responsible for the newspaper's content. Also a man.

Tom Hanks gives us the editor Ben Bradlee. His character is not nuanced. He's the gungho newspaper guy. His first concern is to beat the competition -- The New York Times. Which brings up the question of the Constitution's First Amendment right to a free press.

That, in turn, brings up the fact that Bradlee's Big Boss is a woman.

For my money, the absolute best scene in the movie is when Bradlee's wife describes for him precisely what Graham's situation is. She is not prepared by her background or her sex's recognized position in society to shoulder the responsibility of defending Freedom of the Press. Such a decision would require her to abandon her loyalties to friends high in the government. To that government itself. Not to mention the very real possibility that she could be imprisoned for publishing classified information from what would come to be called The Pentagon Papers.

Worst case scenario, Bradley might do some time in prison. He might lose his job. He would definitely become high-profile in the world of journalism and would be in high demand for another job.

Graham, on the other hand, could lose her family's business. Their income. The jobs of hundreds of people who worked for her. Her position in her community. Her friends. Her father and husband's legacies.

SPOILER ALERT!!! In case you weren't born when all this went down, were still doing your hippie-dippy drugs, or living your own life safe and secure oblivious to your country's crises of faith ....

She did decide to run the story. The audience where I watched the movie broke into applause. And that's not all. The movie ends with a night watchman calling in a possible break-in at the Watergate office building.

Here we are folks -- 2018 almost half a century later. Less than a week before I saw the movie I took part in the Women's March. More than fifty-thousand of us in Denver. We were of all ages and ethnicities and genders and preferences. And there were many thousands more across this nation as we endure another crisis of faith in our country.

Freedom of the Press is included in the First Amendment to the Constitution for good reason. Remember:  “If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, ... it expects what never was & never will be. Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”  -- Thomas Jefferson

This I Believe

Footprint on the Moon (NASA Images)

It's now ten days into the new year. I know that this is a little late for the traditional stock-taking. The letting go of the past and starting fresh. At least theoretically.

Me, it seems I never let go of the past. The things I didn't understand get revisited and analyzed. Over and over again, until I understand them. Or think I do. Then I relish that bit of the past. It makes for good stories. Stories that help me more thoroughly understand, or, more often, understand differently.

Truth be told, I'm not much for letting go and starting fresh. I tend to let the day go and start again in the morning -- not "fresh" just start again where I left off.

For me, today's taking stock is an exploration of what I've come to believe.

This I believe:

I believe in and love People. Some of my best friends are people. We walk together and talk and laugh together. We worry together. But never in just the same way. We come from different countries. We've had very different growings-up. And very different adulthoods. Our politics are different. Some of us are faithfully religious. Some have our own faiths born of religion. And some have faith inspired by our experiences and educations. The one thing we have in common is that we all got to where we are by thoughtfully exploring our worlds and our lives. And we respect each other.

I believe in and love the Earth. It's my home. Its constancy reassures me. The Earth was here long before People and will be here long after us. Its atmosphere turns particles blown by solar winds into light shows. Its volcanoes burst full-flame into the night sky, building new lands. Tectonic plates shift and drift, forever changing Earth's face. Maybe not "alive" like mice and men, but Earth feels alive to me. And it sustains life.

I believe in and love Space. Space is the future of People and the Earth. From Space we can see Earth in its place in the Universe. How beautiful it is. How small. How much smaller are we. Earth, Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, is our birthplace in the Cosmos, where we have morphed from single-celled organism to sentient being. And now Earth is our staging ground.

Some of us have explored and colonized Earth's lands and waters until there is nowhere on Earth that we cannot go. Some of us will follow that explorer gene into Space. There will be new worlds, not to conquer, but to make new homes.

My middle name is not Pollyanna. I know there are difficulties among humans. There are Earth-borne catastrophes. There are dangers known and unknown in Space travel.

What I don't believe is that these negatives will be enough to stop us. We can and we will.

Into the Future!

What's in a Word -- A Study

Hands and Feet attributed to François Le Moyne (French, 1688–1737)
currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

(By-the-bye, if you buy tickets at the Metropolitan's ticket counter, the amount you pay is up to you. They do have suggested prices which seem to me to be most acceptable, but you truly can name your own price.)

An artist uses studies to perfect their drawing skills. Words are a writer's tools. They, too can be used in short pieces as studies.

Shakespeare wrote these words for Juliet to say. Don't you imagine he thought about it, maybe even said them out loud just to see how they sounded. "A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet" meaning that what Romeo was called, a name belonging to a rival family, mattered not at all. Alas, we all know how that worked out.

Then along comes Gertrude Stein who writes "...a rose is a rose is a rose" meaning that the word says that it is a particular flower and that is what she means it is -- a rose. A plain spoken woman, is our Ms. Stein.

But not all roses are roses and had Romeo's name been plain John Brown, it's safe to say that story would have gone another way.

Just as this flower,

Rose of Sharon

 despite its name, is not one of the more than one hundred species of roses. 

It is an hibiscus (hibiscus syriacus to be exact.)

The gentleman rose from his chair as she entered. She wore a long gown. Silk, he thought. The color? Ashes of Roses. He remembered reading that somewhere. In her dark hair, a flower of rubies. Its leaves, tiny emeralds.

"Hello, Rose," he said, extending his hand.

(Which brings to mind another word that can sound very different when read, depending on the situation -- Hello.)

###

From the bottom of the well, "Hello," she called. "Is anybody up there?"

###

He held the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hello," she said. "I'm sorry."

###

She opened the basement door and peered into the gloom, "Hello? Is anybody down there?"

(At which we all yell at the screen, "HELLO! DON'T GO DOWN THERE.")

The Crown -- A Review

Kočka watching The Crown

My cat Kočka paid little or no attention to the second season of the Netflix Original series The Crown. In fact, he only watched a small portion of one episode. In this episode a large contingent of soldiers accompanied by bagpipes marches ahead of the queen as she proceeds to Balmoral, her castle in Scotland. Kočka has a thing for bagpipes. They will draw him from wherever he is in the house. He also loves Celtic Woman. Perhaps he was a Celt in one of his previous lives.

The Crown created and written by Peter Morgan and produced by Left Bank Pictures and Sony Pictures Television for Netflix, is a biographical drama about Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. (Please note: drama not documentary.)

Claire Foy plays Elizabeth, for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. Matt Smith plays Philip. He is probably more famous for being the eleventh Doctor in the long-running BBC series Doctor Who. (My daughter's favorite Doctor!)

The first season was about Queen Elizabeth's life beginning with her marriage to Prince Philip in 1947 and running through 1955. The second season begins in 1956 with England's problems in Egypt and runs through 1964.

I watched that first season and enjoyed it thoroughly. So much so, in fact, that I looked forward to the second season with great anticipation. It filled Downton Abbey's place in my television viewing life quite nicely. If you pay attention, you'll see several actors from Downton.

Both seasons of The Crown are filled with opulent homes and furnishings and, what to me were unusual and on occasion mean-spirited, formalities that the Royals had to live with.

I probably know more about Elizabethan English history than I do about modern British history. I may have been alive during Elizabeth II's reign so far, but I've been much more vested in American goings-on than in Britain's. So I knew little of Britain's colonial activities in the Middle East.

The second season covers times that you'd think I'd remember, but I guess I wasn't paying attention.

What I know of British activities in India and Israel/Palestine during the late 40s is more than they discussed in the series at all. I suppose because the series actually focuses on Elizabeth's own activities and those political crises were in her father's time rather than hers.

It's interesting to me to realize that the woman I always thought of as 'grandmotherly' and 'dowdy' with her purses and hats that looked like a hydrangea on her head wasn't always all that old. Of course in the 60s when I was paying attention to the Brits, it was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Twiggy. Politics and royalty figured not at all.

And I don't remember the Kennedys going to England. That must have been during his "ich bin ein berliner" visit to Germany.

In the scene when the Kennedys are first introduced to the queen, one thing especially caught my attention. Someone in the scene said sotto voce as though shocked "she didn't curtsy." That struck me as particularly odd. Why would they expect a woman who was not a subject of the queen to curtsy?

And I certainly don't remember the Kennedys having the kind of relationship with each other that this series portrays. No spoilers here. You'll have to watch for yourself. But the portrayal of Elizabeth's reaction to President Kennedy's murder, brought tears to my eyes. I'd never before even considered how people outside the U.S. reacted to that horrific event.

The writing and acting throughout both seasons is excellent. And the directing ... I was especially taken with the use of silences in the dialogue.

I don't know how historically accurate the series is. I do think it would be interesting to know what the British Royals think of it. Some of them don't get the rosiest of treatments.

The thing for me is that The Crown is a good story, well told. And if it's not exactly all true, that's okay. I certainly won't hold any of the real people to the historical fiction I enjoyed binge-watching.

And by-the-bye the video of the making of a crown during the opening titles is fascinating.

My Texas Trip -- Nonfiction

Denver International Airport Security lines

I have three grandchildren, one of whom was born October 17, seventeen years ago. And two of whom were born October 15, fourteen and nine years ago respectively. So I went to Texas to celibrate with them.

Thursday morning a little after 5 a.m., as my husband was driving me to Denver International Airport, I got a text from my daughter-in-law, mother of said grandchildren. "I'm leaving Edmond in a few minutes. Will pick you up in Dallas."

Now, Denver is an hour and a half by air from Dallas. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8:00 a.m. MDT, landing at Love Field in Dallas at 10:55 a.m., CDT. Edmond, Oklahoma, is about three and a half hours by car from Dallas. I thought my son was going to pick me up. I had no idea I'd be picked up by my daughter-in-law driving from Oklahoma. I had no idea she'd be in Oklahoma with all the plans of company and parties scheduled for the weekend. It sounded a little iffy, but so...Okay.

I checked one bag at the curb and found out that I had been issued some kind of special ticket so I could go through a shorter line, didn't have to take my shoes off, or take my laptop out of my computer bag.

I hadn't flown in five years, but I was prepared. I had only one carry-on, my computer bag. It's small enough I can put it under the seat in front of me. I packed my belt in my checked baggage and did not wear an underwired bra. No metal, so I wouldn't set off the alarm when I went through the metal detector.

I stepped through the metal detector and the alarm went off. What? I'm sure I looked shocked because I was.

"Do you have an artificial knee?" a TSA officer asked.

"Why yes, I do. Two, in fact. They're new," I said.

He was very kind and directed me to a different metal detector -- one where you put your feet on  yellow footprints and hold your hands over your head while the machine moves around you. I passed and learned the drill. Announce your artificial knees before you go through the wrong metal detector.

In Dallas my daughter-in-law arrived from Oklahoma at almost exactly the same time I got to the curb with my luggage. She's a rational, logical woman. She knew what she was doing. She's an engineer. Need I say more?

My visit was very much a Texas kind of visit. Football is a serious, big deal in Texas. Three football games, a homecoming pep rally, and a homecoming half-time filled my Thursday and Friday nights.

Our team is in red.
Middle Grand is out there somewhere.

The almost 14-year-old Grand played in the first game that Thursday night. He plays both offense and defense which is fairly unusual. He's pretty good. The soon-to-be 17-year-old plays flute in the high school marching band--my personal favorite part of any football game. They performed during the pep rally and then again at half time during the Friday night high school game.

And the nearly-nine-year-old was free to roam the whole area both nights. That's the nice thing about living in a reasonably small town where everybody knows to whom he belongs.





There was one birthday cake to ice and decorate. Son baked it. I stirred up the icing and the eldest Grand decorated it, ably assisted by her mom and her other two grandmothers while her boyfriend helped her study.











The cake was for the youngest Grand's Saturday morning birthday party which involved a dozen elementary school children, their older and younger siblings, and parents, and a bounce-house. .







There was a giant chocolate chip birthday cookie for the Saturday afternoon party. Son baked it. I applied the somewhat Gothic "Happy Birthday." And Daughter-in-law provided the blooming-flaming birthday candle. Most of the household decamped to a trampoline park to meet Middle Grand's friends. I stayed at the house and took a nap with the family dog. She's a lovely boxer. And I must say Rose is easy to sleep with. She doesn't kick or snore.

Someone picked up umpteen smallish bundt cakes of varying flavors for the Saturday evening birthday party. I'd never heard of Nothing Bundt Cakes before. Apparently they're nationwide and we do have them in the Denver area. Guess what I'm going to serve at my next party.

Wine and the birthday bundt cakes followed dinner. Then a rousing game of Loaded Questions closed the evening. Board games are my favorite part of family get togethers.

Sunday morning we all went to church. Not at the same time or in the same car. In fact, Daughter-in-law's Step-Mom and I were the last to go. Since Step-Mom sometimes has difficulty finding her way, it was hoped that I could navigate for her.

Hah! We arrived when the sermon was almost over after many concerned texts from Daughter-in-law. But, Heavens! We got there in time for the Benediction and the Pot Luck Lunch -- the important parts. I don't think Daughter-in-law will trust either of us to transport ourselves any place unsupervised again.

Ahhh. Monday morning, after everybody left in the house got themselves dressed and fed and out the door for work and school, Son drove me into Dallas to catch my flight home.

We discussed where to eat lunch -- I'm always up for hamburgers since you just can't make hamburgers as good at home and I don't eat out often. But during the discussion Son mentioned Freebirds.

It's sorta like Subway except instead of building a sub, you build a burrito. It always trumps all other eateries for me. Even hamburger joints. And there is no Freebirds in Colorado.

Son eating a medium size Freebirds burrito. 

We had guacamole and chips, too. Freebirds guacamole is almost as good as my husband's. So it turns out my medium burrito was more than I could eat. I wrapped it in its foil, put that inside a Freebirds bag and stowed it in my carry-on.

Not to worry. I got this. I know you can't bring liquids in excess of three ounces on the plane in your carry-on. Burritos ain't liquid.

So in the security line at Love Field with all I've learned about commercial flying, I announce that I have had knee replacement. Two, in fact. And go through the proper scanner. No problem.

But then a TSA guy indicating my computer bag asks, "Is this your bag?"

"Yes," I say.

And he invites me to come with him to a bank of screens. He pulls up something like an ultrasound shot with an area circled many times. I step behind him so I can see the screen better.

"Please stand to the side," he says.

"But I can't see," I say.

He insists I stand to the side.

He opens the bag and points to a brown paper bag with the words "Freebirds" clearly inscribed.

"It's a left-over burrito," I say. Like what else would it be?

"Ma'am will you take it out of the bag?" Meaning the brown paper bag.

I do as asked, explaining that we don't have a Freebirds in Colorado and I didn't want to leave it behind and it wasn't liquid after all.

He proceeded to swab the foil-wrapped burrito and the entire inside of the computer bag and my laptop. You will be relieved to know that there was nothing explosive about the burrito -- just a cayenne tortilla, rice, refried beans, carnitas, pico de gallo, and hot sauce -- a righteous gustatory explosion, perhaps.

I was so tired when I got to DIA. But the adventure wasn't over yet.

It was the first time I had taken the train from the airport into Denver. Which, by-the-bye is great. Courteous officers, no traffic. But it's a long, long walk from baggage claim to the train. And when I got to Union Station in Denver, I got a bit lost trying to go to the light rail station. I walked probably two blocks the wrong way which put me five blocks from the light rail. But I got to ask directions from two pleasant young men, separately, three blocks apart.

And all the while I'm dragging my husband's very heavy, hard-sided suitcase. On wheels, thank goodness.

I learned that you can use the handicap ramp to get on the light rail and that way you don't have to lift your luggage up those very steep steps onto the train.

My husband picked me up at the Federal Center Station and drove me home. I ate my leftover, well-swabbed burrito and went straight to bed.

I am so glad I had my knees replaced. I don't think I could have done it with the old ones. As it is, I'll probably be ready to do it all again next year. But I'll take a lighter suitcase and get the small burrito.

Stone House Park -- Nonfiction

The Stone House

Built sometime between 1859 and 1864, the Stone House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Constructed of stones from Bear Creek and rough-dressed sandstone quarried from a nearby ridge called the Hogback, the house has 18 inch thick walls -- the better for its inhabitants to withstand 100 degree summers and minus degree winters. These days it belongs to the City of Lakewood and is a popular venue for wedding receptions and family reunions.

Stone House Park is one of our walking group's favorite destinations.

Bear Creek, where they gathered the rounded river rocks used in building the house, runs through the park. Fed by snow melt in the mountains to the west, it provides water to this otherwise parched country. Water for trout, trees, birds, and wildlife of all kinds.

A paved bike and walking path runs along the south side of the creek. It goes west to Red Rocks Park, home of the well-known Red Rocks Amphitheater where everybody from The Beatles to Joe Bonamassa have performed. The bike path runs east to the South Platte River Trail.

Along the north side of the creek, the trails are unpaved, but well-maintained.



I completely missed the weather forecast for this morning. I thought it was supposed to be 48 degrees and sunny.  Silly me. It was 33 degrees and completely overcast at walking-time. Some of us had other obligations and others had more sense than I so I walked alone. That was perfectly okay. I could stop and take pictures at will, without worrying that I was slowing the group down.

With the flowers and most of the leaves gone for the winter, I saw things that I hadn't noticed before. Like the bat houses that local Eagle Scouts have put up near the shore of the park's lower lake.

And a grand old cottonwood stump, much bigger around than two people could reach.

By the end of my walk, I ran into Lanay, a fellow member of our walking group. Our group is from everywhere -- New Jersey, Louisiana, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Germany, California, etc. And even a couple of Colorado natives.

In addition to walking together in beautiful parks, we visit. I get to learn about all kinds of places I've never been. For example, Lanay did her graduate work at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. And that is one of the places my daughter is applying to for graduate school. So I got to find out that Ithaca is a beautiful city on a hill and Cornell is a welcoming and well-regarded educational institution. I've  appreciated their Ornithology Lab and its All About Birds website for years. But now, I know that it will be a good place for her to live, if she does go there for school.

What better way is there to make connections with the world?

Edit. Edit! EDIT! -- On Writing

image from realmarketing.gr

"Is it blood? She is, after all, a murder mystery writer."

Blood? No. It's red ink. And, yes I am a murder mystery writer. More importantly for this blog post, I'm a murder mystery reader.

I'm not an Episcopalian. I'm not a Pastafarian who believes in the Great Spaghetti God. I'm an Editorian. An Editorian's tenets are simple. 1. Write. 2. Submit to an Editor. 3. Submit to another Editor, and another and another, as many as it takes. 3. Trust your reader. Cut unnecessary words.

Oh, yes. And number 4. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! (Thank you Henry David Thoreau.)

"But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here to talk about the draft." Well, no. Not the draft. Apologies to Arlo Guthrie.

Editing! That's what I want to talk about.

I'm reading Fatal, the newest John Lescroart novel. If you've read any of my previous reviews of his books, you'll know he's my favorite crime novel writer. Not because of his writing style, but because of his characters -- Defense Attorney Dismas Hardy and Homicide Investigator Abe Glitsky and their various and sundry friends and relatives.

Lescroart's stories are sufficiently salted with twists and turns to keep me reading and clues sprinkled here and there to keep me guessing.

His twelfth Dismas Hardy novel Betrayal was a change up. Much of the first part of the book took place in Iraq with no mention of Hardy or Glitsky. But I kept reading and finally they showed up.

This Lescroart book is ominously touted as a "stand alone" novel. I'm afraid that may mean that the Hardy/Glitsky crowd won't show up.

So I'm on page 74. This is the scene. Two women, Kate a housewife and her cop friend Beth, are having lunch in a downtown San Francisco restaurant. "But suddenly, from outside in the main hallway came the booming sound of an explosion, followed quickly by two others, and then a volley of pops, like strings of firecrackers." This could be improved. It should start off slow and confusing as the situation really would have been --  From somewhere came a booming sound. Then two more and a volley of pops like strings of firecrackers. In the amount of time it takes the reader to read the word 'suddenly' the suddenness is lost. Kate and Beth don't yet know what is happening or where it's coming from. An explosion is not what one would think of in the middle of a meal in a nice restaurant.

The next paragraph reads "Both women turned toward the restaurant's entrance where now they heard another enormous explosion, then more of the popping sounds, accompanied by the completely unexpected, terrifying, and unmistakable noise of people screaming." Both women? Really? I thought we were reading about the Ohio State Marching Band. Turning toward the restaurant's entrance they heard another explosion, then more popping sounds and people screaming.

Of course the screaming is unexpected, terrifying, and unmistakable. All unnecessary words that slow the action. Now they're starting to think explosion.

Next paragraph: "Then Beth was on her feet, reaching behind her back for her service weapon, which she realized too late that she never carried on their walks. Swearing, she turned, looked back at her table. 'Get up! Get up!' she yelled at Kate. 'Let's go!'" Short sentences! Short sentences! The reader should be getting short of breath at this point. Beth leapt to her feet and reached for her service weapon. It wasn't there. It was in its lock box at home. She looked back at Kate. 'Get up! Let's go!' 

There is no need for attribution for the dialog. Who else would she be yelling at. There's no need to even say she's yelling. That's what exclamation points say. 

Then page 75 is more of the same -- too many words, too many prepositional phrases, too much telling. All ending in the phrase "as thick smoke wafted its way into the room."

At this point I slammed my open-palm down on the dining table, making my own explosion. Wafted? Wafted?! What are we talking about here? The scent of jasmine wafting across the veranda? Give me a break! There is a terrorist attack going on and we're being fed thick smoke wafted?

I don't think so. Hemingway, Hemingway. Where for art thy mot juste?

Ah, well. I've still got to read further. Can't stop on page 75. Dismas and Abe may yet show up.